Photo Credit: Apple
Often called “the Apple fanboy” in my circles, I’m frequently asked which iPhone, iPad, or Mac someone should purchase. This is usually followed by my asking a large number of questions about their anticipated uses, which often results in their eyes glazing over and them saying in exasperation, “I don’t know. Whatever! Just tell me which one I should buy.” Of course, that question is fraught with nuance depending upon their needs. Do they just write email and surf the web? Do they do a lot of photo editing? Are they making home videos? Are they planning to build a following on YouTube and need a ton of high-resolution, carefully curated video? Are they working for a professional video production company and are going to be creating 3D renders all day long? Apple’s historically (well, recent history, anyway) broad lineup of Intel-based Macs had varying degrees of speed, capability, and battery life depending upon your intended uses. Just telling someone which Mac they should buy without unearthing those details seemed…unsatisfactory.
Without hesitation, I am now able to answer that question for nearly every person who would ask with simply “the M2 MacBook Air.” Professionals who would need the expanded power of a MacBook Pro or even a Mac Studio already know what they need in a computer. They have long processing workflows involving “8K video” this and “multiple 4K stream video” that. They throw in phrases like “I spend all day in Final Cut Pro” or “I run eight concurrent Linux VMs” to let you know that they’re demanding users with intense needs. The M2 MacBook Air isn’t for them—and that’s fine.
For anyone else who “does a lot of things with computers,” (that’s a shout-out) the M2 MacBook Air will most assuredly meet their needs. If they can’t articulate specific workflows that the extra power cores of the M1 Pro, Max, or Ultra configurations will help them with, they probably don’t need them. For the rest of us, the new M2 MacBook Air is today’s best representation of a laptop for web surfing, composing email, writing documents, blogs, or books, balancing your checkbook, playing an occasional game, or running your task manager. Checking on that Amazon order? The M2 Air. Plotting a road trip to your next vacation destination? The M2 Air, again. Collecting family photos and editing home video from that vacation to share with grandparents and friends? You guessed it…the M2 MacBook Air.
The M2 MacBook Air comes with an updated design that puts it firmly into the new 14” and 16” MacBook Pro family. While it may be the younger sibling of the three, have no doubt, it’s scrappy, quick, and feisty like the littlest in the family tend to be.
Here’s where it shines:
- The college student who needs a thin, lightweight, “backpackable” laptop that has an all-day battery to deal with classes, homework, and Netflix marathons before being able to recharge late at night back in the dorm,
- The traveling professional who is always on a plane, in a car, or moving from meeting room to meeting room,
- The stay-at-home professional who likes to pick-up their computer and move from the bedroom office to the kitchen to the patio to shake-up their days (with the brighter screen provided in the new M2, working outside in the sun is perfectly fine—just use a sunscreen with a good SPF), or
- The “desktop laptop” user who generally stays planted at their desk and uses an external monitor (which works fantastically in clamshell mode), but wants the convenience of being able to pick up their computer and run out the door if needed.
So, that sounds like just about everyone, doesn’t it? I wouldn’t recommend it if they are professional video editors, Dreamworks animation renderers, or heavy AAA PC-gamer types, but again, those people already know what they want and need.
The M2 MacBook Air is available in four different colors (I chose the dark-blue-almost-black “Midnight,” fingerprint magnet though it may be) with two different processor selections that basically adds two more cores to the graphics processing unit). You can also add more storage or more RAM, both of which I recommend if you can because there’s no upgrading it once purchased—you get what you get.
At the low end, pricing starts at $1,199 USD but if you have virtually any association with a student, shopping the Apple Education Store drops that price to $1,099. On the other end of the scale, a fully-loaded M2 MacBook Air with 24 GB of RAM and a 2TB SSD will clock in at $2,499 or $2,299 with the educational discount. Sure, I can ask a litany of questions to help you determine how far toward the end of that price point you should go, but in reality, even the base configuration is a fully serviceable computer for the needs of most people who don’t already know what they need or want (or why they need or want it). Because you can’t upgrade later, I tend to max-out the configuration to get more years of service from it, but I’d recommend a configuration of 16 GB RAM and a 512GB SSD for most people. If they’re photo-heavy users and can be seen constantly shooting pics or video on their iPhones, I’d move the storage to 1 or 2TBs depending on the number of photos in their libraries. (That said, with iCloud Photo Library, the Mac doesn’t have to be a primary repository that holds full-size images, but you should have at least one source of truth for your full-resolution photos that isn’t iCloud.)
With the introduction of the M2 MacBook Air, I can confidently answer the “What should I get?” question before the questioner wants to take a swing at me or walk away with their hands over their ears. If (and only if) the prospective purchaser says, “…but I don’t want to spend that much on a computer when I can buy this [insert choice of bargain-basement Chromebook or Windows machine here],” I’d point them to the still extremely capable and well-groomed M1 MacBook Air now offered for $999 retail ($899 education). For sub-$1,000, the M1 MacBook Air is an incredible machine at a solid value, but if an extra $200 doesn’t break the bank, splurge on the faster M2 MacBook Air for the new design, better speakers and mics, and higher resolution webcam. (The M2 is a work-from-home Zoom-meeting attendee’s dream.) Either way, you won’t have to hear, “This computer you told me to buy is awful; why would you recommend it?” ever again.
*As always, any views reflected above are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer(s).